Abstract/Summary

This thesis sought to investigate figurative language teaching in the context of L2 learning in a Saudi Arabian university, through the lens of cognitive linguistics. More specifically, the aim was to explore the ways in which female L2 Saudi university learners’ reading comprehension, and their learning and retention of metaphoric expressions, are impacted by conceptual metaphor teaching. A mixed-methods quasi-experimental design was used to explore 210 female students’ general understanding of reading texts and the metaphoric expressions embedded within those texts. These students’ ability to transfer the newly learned metaphoric knowledge to new untaught metaphors within the reading texts was also investigated. In addition, the learning and 2-week retention of metaphoric expressions was assessed. Moreover, students’ perceptions of the different teaching methodologies they were exposed to, as well as their thoughts on the strategies they chose when understanding the reading texts and metaphoric expressions, were investigated through interviews with 16 students. Students in the intervention group (108) received conceptual metaphor teaching of metaphoric expressions, whereas comparison group participants (102) received teaching of semantic meanings of the same expressions. An analysis of the findings showed a statistically significant improvement for students in the intervention group, both in their comprehension of reading texts and understanding of metaphors, including taught and untaught metaphoric expressions. In fact, in all elements of the analysis, participants who experienced the intervention demonstrated the most progress from pre- to immediate post-tests. Furthermore, these positive results, in relation to both metaphor understanding and reading comprehension, were shown to be longer-term, with the intervention group maintaining progress throughout the study (the 2- week delayed post-test). Importantly, students who received conceptual metaphor teaching were able to transfer the knowledge to new metaphoric expressions outside the learned conceptual metaphors. In contrast, the comparison group showed no statistically significant improvement between any of the three time points. In fact, their scores declined from the immediate to the delayed post-test, illustrating that they were not able to transfer the knowledge of the semantic explanation teaching they received, to new metaphors.